Friday, August 31, 2012

Rabbit Stroganoff

Blog's Category: USSR-era Recipes, International


Intro
Have you ever tried rabbit meat? If I would still eat meat in general, rabbit would be my choice of meat. It has very distinctive amazing flavor, delicate taste and great nutritious qualities.
In my Ukrainian childhood I was treated to rabbits pretty often - my grandparents were actually growing it.
There is a classic Ukrainian dish which translated sounds like "rabbit cooked in a sour cream", so let's call it Rabbit Stroganoff. Speaking of this dish, my mom was cooking it the best (naturally!), really - I never ate better rabbit than that of my mom's. Looks like I can call myself the master of this dish also (forget about modesty :)).  That's why I'd like to share this recipe with you. 
Variations
- You shouldn't really seek for variations. It's a small number of ingredients in this recipe and they are basically irreplaceable and cannot be omitted as well. Please try to make it exactly as I suggest below and you'll see what I mean.
- Also try to get fresh rabbit, not a frozen one. I cooked both, fresh and frozen, and always, always, fresh was much better.

Taste Description
There is nothing too bold or harsh about taste of this dish. Softness and richness, multi-layered subtle flavors are happily marry here. Meat is flavorful and has an interesting texture.Sauce is so delicious that you may forget about meat itself.

How to Serve
To utilize great sauce, serve this rabbit with a side of mashed potato (make a wail in it and fill with the sauce). Rice or any other grains works as a side dish here as well.

Rabbit Stroganoff


1 rabbit, cut in pieces
1.5 to 2 c sour cream
1 large onion
5 garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
3-4 c water
salt
black pepper
5 tbs olive oil

- Cook rabbit pieces in a pan with olive oil until just slightly browned. It's better "underdo" here than "overdo". Rabbit may be tough if fried too much.

- Transfer rabbit to the pot (dutch oven type is the best).

- In the same pan where rabbit was cooked, fry chopped onion until soft and just started to get some tan.

- Add minced garlic to the onion, stir for couple times and add sour cream, water, salt, pepper and bay leaves. Cook sauce for a couple more minutes until sour cream is melted.

- Pour sauce over the rabbit. Bring pot with a rabbit and a sauce to the boil and switch heat to the low. Simmer for about 30 minutes until sauce is smooth and silky and meat is cooked.

- Turn off the heat (don't forget to stop tasting the sauce before it's not too late and it's gone !)

- Enjoy!

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IN PICTURES
I know :(.. Poor rabbit


As I said - do not "over brown" the rabbit.



Use real stuff, no low fats or non-fat G** FORBID  :)


Bay leaf is the must!

I had hard time stopping tasting the sauce. Too bad, I had to stop - it was just perfect, no more excuses for trying it again and again...
Here it is - done.

1 comment:

I would love to hear from you!